Didn't I just say this?

If you've ever been to or plan to be in a non fast food restaurant,or if you are a server in a restaurant, this article is for you, especially the former category. I count my lucky stars that I'm not a server anymore, but I'm only one step removed from it, and some people certainly mistake me for a restaurant server, only there's never a tip! So go here, read, learn and respect. If you're out on a date, the best way to impress your date is to be polite to your server and tip generously while paying your full attention to the lovely person sharing your table. After all, you invited them! Believe me when I say that being cheap and/or rude is NOT a turn-on!

Almost out of the woods...retail hell

It's now officially the end of Christmas season- hooray! If I ever have to hear another bloody Christmas song again, there's going to be bits and pieces of bodies left by the Muzak radio dial in my store and the mute button will be shot in the on position, so that it can never be turned off again!

Please, all you other religio-spiritual denominations, put your best people to work and come up with a crapload of really awful, syrupy full chorus songs about YOUR major freakin' holiday and let's alternate between all of them for about three months-at least it would break the monotony. Come on, Hindus, Moslems, Native Americans, Rosicrucians, Coptics, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Pagans- where are the hit holiday songs to compete with Christmas classics like "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" or "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" or "White Christmas"?

Let's bombard the airwaves with new classics like "It's Devali Time in Old Karnataka" repeated over and over every fifteen minutes starting around May, then stopping in October after the season is over. Or how about that instant hit " Casting the Circle on Samhain Again"? Let's start that one around April and continue into the end of October. Make sure you have seventeen different renditions of each song available and play all of them within any given eight hour period. Gotta have a country one, the 101 Strings version, rockabilly, bubblegum pop, polka, blues, a really slow Yanni heartfelt instrumental, the Kenny G version, etc.

But that's not enough, people. Because when I get home from a full day of listening to crappy, shmaltzy Christmas songs which repeat all day long and crazy customers who are apparently incapable of thinking ahead every freaking year when it comes to holiday meals and who panic at the last minute like a herd of startled bison at a watering hole and buy everything in sight, and who insist on telling me their goddamned life story while angry mobs gather with their hands out, waiting to be fed...when I leave this madhouse exhausted and abused, the only thing I want besides a quick meal and my bed is to find nothing but shmaltzy, crappy syrupy Christmas specials on every freaking TV series and special shmaltzy, crappy syrupy Christmas movies, so that I can't possibly escape the merest mention of the damned holiday.

Oh, and don't wish me a Merry Christmas unless you're POSITIVE that I'm a fellow Christian (I'm not)-just say Happy Holidays and don't assume I'm you, or use my favorite retort "Merry/Happy Chanu-Kwanz-a-Solsti-Mas" and at least one of them has a high chance of being right. If you practice saying it, it gets easier.

And Happy Solar New Year to my Gregorian-leaning friends. My Lunar calendar friends will have to wait a while.

Holiday Time On The Winter Solstice

Well, yesterday was December 22 . This year December 22 was the shortest day but longest night of the year. That's the Winter Solstice. In pagan circles, it's the time when people draw inward and become contemplative, a time for ending things and finishing tasks. In pretty much every place where the climate drops, people draw inward into the house more and feel cozy inside while the weather blusters outside. I think of fireplaces with big overstuffed comfy chairs nearby, the warmth of candlelight, the smell of hot apple cider or hot chocolate warming on the stove, baking cookies while the snow flies around in a crazy dance. None of these things is actually happening where I live right now- it's unseasonably warm, I don't have a fireplace, there aren't any candles. I have not made cider or chocolate or baked any cookies this season. We do have an overstuffed comfy sectional near the warmth of the big screen tv.

We now have this crazy Christmas tree with that color wheel thingy my husband remembers from his childhood. His mother and I got it for him this year, because it was all he wanted when he went in for open-heart surgery several years ago and I promised him we'd get it for him. After much searching, mom found the one we were looking for at a decent price and grabbed it for us. I went all over the place finding ornaments that I thought would fit with that 1950's version of life and childhood that the tree represents for my husband. the most , Never having done all this before, it was a bit daunting deciding what to get for a silver tinsel tree, but I knew it needed to integrate with our living room decor, which is red, black and white, and the ornaments had to look retro enough but kind of postmodern. I even found some black ornaments ( those appealed to our niece's Goth aesthetics). I think I succeeded.

Initially, I had to try not to balk at the thought of a traditionally Christian symbol in my home, but after thinking about it, it was just a dopey fake tree with lots of shiny things on it which give off a soft warm light. So maybe it's a sort of fireplace replacement. Maybe for some people who were raised with this tradition, there's more to it than that, but it's not a tradition I understand or care about. So maybe for me, it's just about a cozy light and delivering on a promise I made to my husband, and perhaps giving him something that reminds him of the simpler, happy times of his childhood. And I think I did a pretty good job of decorating the tree, too, although the minimalist in me liked it better when there wasn't much on it. Apparently, minimalism is not appropriate to even silver tinsel christmas trees. Sigh. I guess that old Coco Chanel saying doesn't hold true here: pile everything on, then keep taking off stuff till it works.

Anyway, if I actually followed any tradition at all and it was a pagan one, completing the obligation of a promise fulfilled would be very appropriate to mark the Winter Solstice.

There's a guy named John Horgan who appears on Blogging Heads. He's written some interesting books, and he referred in his blog to an article he'd written for the New York Times about the Winter Solstice, which you can read here.

lambie of the week

Lambs? Uh, kind of. So if the lamb twins (there are actually two of them) are baby lambs, or lamb babies, then is the picture on the left a sheep/dog or a dog/sheep? I say both. Then I laugh a lot. It's one of my favorite pictures ever. Perhaps I've just anthropomorphised the dog, but it looks pretty pleased with itself to me. The babies look a little more confused. Dare I say it, is the dog just a wolf(hound) in sheep's clothing? Can grandma be far behind or did he eat her? Perhaps we'll never know.

Now who on earth is this guy??!!

This time I have no idea, but I like one of his particular posts, this being holiday time and everything, and my feelings about religion being that it should be avoided at all costs, because it will always end up costing you something, here's a guy I found kinda interesting, despite his horrible spelling and syntax errors. We'll let that slide, as I believe he's very likely not a native English speaker. Well, here he is, propounding his theory of Life, the Universe, and Everything...Srini. Take it,Srini.

Who On Earth Is Tom Baker?

This is actually not my title today, it's actually Tom's. Maybe you actually DON'T know who Tom Baker is, at least the particular one I mean. One of BBC's longest running shows, which stopped for many years, and then started up again, was/is Dr. Who. Originally done in black and white (that's how old the show is!), there have been a variety of actors who play the title role, one of whom was Tom Baker. I have watched the show and its various Doctor incarnations for quite a number of years, with varying levels of amusement and boredom. BBC spared every expense, mainly because they didn't have any money, when they created the show, and sometimes that made the sets, costumes, and frequently, the scripts, rather bargain basement. OK, I'll come right out and say it: cheesy. That was the accidental humor, at least for me, of the show. The villains were the same guys a lot, dressed in a new slapped-together getup and modulating their voices a little, bless them.

Then they found Tom Baker and the thing came to life for me. With a finger laid aside the nose, he was funny, cheeky, and a little overblown in just the right way. He made it so much fun to watch that I tried never to miss one of his episodes.

I have an uncanny (and utterly useless) memory for famous people's voices and faces, and an equally useless memory for their names. If only there were a way to make these things lucrative! Sigh. Ah well. Anyway, no matter how they disguise the bloke, or the bird, there are certain geometries of face, and certain idiosyncracies of speech in pitch, timbre and stresses that tell me exactly who this is, whether I want to or not. I couldn't tell you what those geometries and speech patterns were, but I recognize them. When some actor or actress intrigues me, I can usually spot them, even if they're in the background or a voiceover, and no matter what their age. My husband has learned not to bet against me anymore.

So since I first saw Tom Baker as Doctor Who, I've spotted him in some other productions. Sometimes he's exquisitely cast, as when he played Donald MacDonald on Monarch of the Glen, another BBC show which I adored for exactly the opposite reasons as Dr. Who- beautiful sets and locations in Scotland, realistic costumes, naturalistic direction of a very talented cast, and mostly witty scripts. Brilliant! Other times, the role wasn't quite as well-suited, or the director a bit less talented, or the writing not terribly moving or funny. I still enjoyed watching Mr. Baker. He has a kind of charismatic sparkle.

All this is by way of explanation of my latest enjoyable read. I had the honor to receive an e-mail response from one of my favorite authors, Jasper Fforde, basically after I kind of begged him to do so. Still, I had't really expected a reply, but was delighted when one came. He recommended Mr. Baker's autobiography, which in my ignorance I had never heard of, called..."Who On Earth Is Tom Baker?", written by the actor himself. Fforde had told me it was witty, poignant and funny, so I found it in the UK and ordered it. My husband is annoyed whenever I read the book at bedtime, because I laugh way too much. Baker is a delightful storyteller and gives you quite a picture of the specific times and location of his upbringing and life in the wide world, from bombed-out Liverpool and abject poverty to success and adulation the world over as one of the most popular, possibly THE most popular Doctor Who, which has an immense cult following.

Mr. Baker is happily living in England with his devoted wife Sue, and has done a variety of projects which include the voiceover for Little Britain, a crazy funny variety show on the beeb, but it seems doubtful that he has any plans to come to America to visit any time soon.

Perhaps it's my own vanity, or the charm of the writing and the man himself, but I thought my only chance to let him know how much I enjoyed it was to say so on his website, which it seems he at least occasionally looks at. Baker doesn't know me from Adam, or in this case Eve, still I figure everyone likes an occasional clap on the shoulder to say "well done". I read some of the fan comments and most of them nauseated me and many were accidentally funny in a poorly written, sycophantic sort of way. Perhaps we all have issues which drive us to see a specific personal meaning in things where there isn't any, and maybe I just can't see my own, but I really can't say that Doctor Who changed my life, or saved it, or that the script resonated with the emotional issues I was currently dealing with and was rich in symbolism (pleaaase!), or that I imagined the Doctor as the father/son/lover/brother/uncle/grandad/doctor/pet goldfish/lawn ornament/blancmange I never had, I just thought it was fun to watch when it was Tom Baker.

And it's even more fun to go along for the ride with Tom Baker as he describes how he got there with wit, style, humor, and self-deprecation. If you can find yourself a copy of his book, I highly suggest you get your mitts on it and devour it whole. I'm hoping that perhaps his publisher will re-print it now that Doctor Who is back on the air and as popular as ever. Baker was also gracious enough to send a congratulatory note to David Tennant, the current Doctor, who I also enjoy watching (the first one in a long time since Baker!). Seems like a lovely bloke to me.So please send Tom Baker all of your money. Just kidding. Just buy anything you can on his site. OK, how about smile at him if you see him on the road or mowing the lawn? That'll do nicely.

There's a calendar for every taste, apparently

I don't know about you, but I've been shopping for holiday gifts for a variety of relatives, younger and older, seemingly forever this season. It's serious for me, as I like to do careful research about each of them, find out what their taste is, and target something towards that so that their little faces light up when they see their gift. This is not an easy task, and many, oh so very many, don't know how to do this very well, but I pride myself on it. The reason it's tricky is that in order to achieve the penultimate giftitude (yes, I know that's not a word, but I've just made it up, so now it is), you must step outside yourself and put yourself in the giftee's shoes. So if you hate the color orange, for instance, and the giftee adores it, well then orange it is, however much you might naturally balk. You must place your trembling fingers upon that deeply orange object and through gritted teeth say to the poor dear who is stuck working at whatever retail establishment you've selected for your purchase: "yes, I'll have this one, please" and then go vomit somewhere before you wrap it exquisitely for your beloved giftee. If you're very lucky, you may not ever have to see the object again. Of course, if it's not absolutely hideous to you, it's much easier.

Many people don't give it a second thought at all- they just buy what they would want, but that's all wrong. They may very well think YOUR taste is hideous and hate everything you give them. There is a certain relative I am stuck with who shall remain nameless, but they're not exactly my favorite, and I despise this person's taste 99% of the time, along with pretty much everything else they do, and this person has definitely not mastered the art of gift giving, but they are loved and adored by someone whom I love and adore, so... I have received things from this relative and just looked at them as if they must have had some entirely different person in mind when they bought this thing, and somehow mixed up the packages by accident. And then thanked them profusely and graciously through gritted teeth, assuring them that this is just lovely and exactly what I wanted, because one should be gracious about these things. Then I try to think of someone who might actually like this thing and won't come into contact with the relative in question and re-gift. Yes, that's kind of horrible, but I don't lose a wink of sleep over it. Better that than have the ugly useless thing staring me in the face every day. No, not the relative, the gift.

Anyway, I've probably gotten it wrong upon occasion, but it's not for lack of research or effort if I haven't exactly hit the mark, and frequently it was for lack of dosh, cabbage, money, whatever you want to call it, so it was down to two choices: make something, or buy what I could afford. Fortunately, I'm pretty creative, so I usually make something if it's possible. Better to come with something to give everyone than to arrive empty-handed, at least to my way of thinking.

This year, we have been more fortunate than most of the last decade, but we're by no means rolling in it. And for some reason, my retail hell schedule has been even more horrible than in previous years, so my time, while not any more limited than usual, has been scattered to inopportune moments. thus making it quite a challenge to get handmade things and shopping done. So I bought way more things than I would have normally, and didn't make much of anything. I also managed to steer clear of the dreaded malls, thank my lucky stars and the internet.

I did make baskets for everyone, and gave one a variety of lovely teas and a pretty teapot set for one, another got some special coffee and tea from their favorite vacation site with an authentic coffee set from that place, a marathon runner got a gift card from his favorite electronics store and some energy bars deemed the best by marathon runner websites, etc.
Several of them got gift cards because I know they enjoy picking things out themselves and I haven't got enough specific information to do it for them well, but I like fluffing the gift out a bit. A gift card may be appropriate to their interests, but it's a lackluster gift to open with everyone else, so I thought long and hard about what else to include so it's more fun.

Hmm, a calendar suited to their individual interests would be nice, and after further research, I checked online for what was available. OMG! We all know that there are pin-up calendars, but that would be really creepy coming from an aunt, so I didn't even consider those for the boys. Not that I care if they have one, mind you. Nothing advertising anything illegal or immoral, but fattening would be OK, if appropriate to the individual. I searched and searched, and was amazed to find the variety of calendars available. Apparently, there is one for every taste, no matter how vulgar, stupid, weird or wonderful. For instance, by now if you know nothing else about me, if you have seen any of my other posts, you know I love sheep. Maybe abnormal to some, but that's me, so I bought myself one. I can justify my love of sheep. But SQUIRRELS? The little bastards seen everywhere you don't want them?! The ones who steal the birdseed from the birds, eat your favorite garden plants to oblivion, wreak havoc on grandma's window screens? Bite the occasional U.S. president? Carry rabies sometimes?Or is that raccoons? SQUIRRELS? Squirrel of the month? Who would want twelve pictures of squirrels, for gosh sakes? You don't need a picture of a squirrel when they're always right in front of you everywhere you look, do you? Never mind, I don't want to know. To me, the correct approach to squirrels is a BB gun aimed out of your window at the little pests as they ruin yet another window screen. Not that I actually have a BB gun, but I do fantasize about it occasionally. I give them dirty looks and yell at them, though. That's at least somewhat satisfying. But don't even think about getting me a squirrel calendar, unless it comes mounted to a dartboard.

lambie of the week

This is a screenshot from one of my favorite shows on telly: Shaun the Sheep. I found it accidentally on the Disney Channel when I was channel surfing (yes, I AM almost 50 and watch the Disney Channel!) and we TiVo it. Everyone laughs at me for watching it, but when we make them watch it, they love it too. It's the guys who did Wallace & Gromit, and Flushed Away as well. The show has a really cool website which is obviously geared towards children and they generously allow you to download some of the images of the characters and the backgrounds, which I did. The images are chrystalline clear and the attention to detail in the lighting of the characters and the set is amazing. The sets themselves are gorgeous. It all makes you forget that the characters and sets are pretty small when you see Nick Park and his cohorts in the midst of them while they're filming. If you hadn't realized it, the characters are done in claymation. I rather like that occasionally you can still see a fingerprint on the odd eyelid or body.

Last Minute Louies:

Do you know what a last minute louie is? You might even be one for all I know.

I learned quickly when I was waiting tables that the last customer of the night was usually the biggest pain in the ass and they wouldn't leave. You could turn off the music, then the lights , and beat them on the head with the ashtrays- they were completely oblivious . Well, maybe the ashtray thing was just a fantasy, but it would have speeded them up a little. They usually turned out to be the cheapest tippers too. I got cagey about it and started generously offering the poor innocent working the shift with me the last table. Sucker!

I have found the same or similar to hold true in groceryland. Inevitably, there is a $200-300 order about 15 minutes after closing. This is a last minute louie. This person also tends to be what a friend called an "arm-folder": people who just stand there at the register like a deer caught in the headlights, staring blankly into space with their arms folded across their chests. They casually shop after we close like they have all the time in the world. God only knows what time they think we close. The estimates seem to vary wildly amongst arm-folders of distinction, despite the fact that we're open at the same hours seven days a week all through the year except for three or four days a year.It's written in huge letters on our front door, and our hours are exactly the same as every other store in the whole chain. We're not allowed to throw customers out or tell them we closed a while ago and turning off the music doesn't even register for them, much like my restaurant customers. Even though they're shopping the very last possible moment of the evening, they're shocked and apalled that they can't seem to find their favorite things, and that the shelves are looking a little barren. Never mind that there are pallets full of stacked boxes all over the store which will eventually block almost every aisle so we can re-stock once we close. On top of all this, they frequently start tapping their fingers impatiently on the register while you bag their huge order without lifting a finger to help. They frequently haven't even looked for their credit card yet, and it's quite a hunt in that black hole they call a bag. If there hasn't been one of these customers yet, and it's about two minutes before closing, be assured that there's still one lurking in your aisles.

We usually assign an employee to act as bouncer at the door at exactly closing time, because if we're not ever-vigilant, a few slip through then and will wander aimlessly around the store until we herd them towards the register. We smile at them through gritted teeth and fantasize that we make them unload the pallets with us. They'd never be a last minute louie again, trust me.

" 'scuse Me While I Shoot This Guy"

My apologies to Jimi Hendrix and his estate. I haven't even had a chance to read my e-mail, let alone write anything lately. Well, 'tis the Season...we're reaching the crescendo of the crazy holiday shopper season. Why, oh why, do the slavemasters I work for seem to think that it's a good thing to destroy your entire day by scheduling us too early to do anything beforehand, and too late to do much afterwards besides collapse in a heap? Or better yet, how about working until about 9:30 at night, then waking up at 5:00 a.m. to leave for work again at 5:30 a.m. ? You might as well set up a cot for me at work. There isn't even enough time to sleep, let alone calm down from the night of hell and get something to eat either that night or the next morning. What did I do?!! There are 50 of us to schedule. Do you mean to tell me that absolutely no one else could do the 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift? No one? And I'm not the only one this has happened to, apparently.

The only good things about this kind of turnaround shift is that you're so tired that you don't even remember the first three hours, and the customer contact is, thankfully, minimal, since you're there for three hours before they open, then you get a half hour break after they open, so from that standpoint, at least, it's optimal. But you're much more likely to have a cranky employee as a result, so don't blame me if I go a little postal. I promise not to shoot anybody, though. No one would be stupid enough to give me the ammo anyway.

Dealing with customers at this time of year is much like trying to train a really stupid puppy that you adore. They're sweet and lovable, some of them, but unless you stick their head right on the three different signs that state what the demo of the day is and show them the product right in front of their faces in stacks at the counter, they don't associate any of these things with the product that is being sampled with them. Maybe I've said this before, but I can't emphasize the obviousness of this enough to suit me, and I have to say what it is for 5 hours straight. It's not even a matter of literacy, because even an illiterate could look at the picture on the 50 boxes, bags and tins in front of me and notice that the demo looks just like it.

Most people don't even care what it is anyway. We always state the possible allergens in the product with a sign right in front of me and we tape an empty container with the list of ingredients right next to it at eye level. And yet, I actually had a teenager eat something called a peanut something right on the label of all the bottles stacked up on my shelves. She ate it without looking at anything or asking any questions about the product. Then her mother came up and said she was allergic to peanuts. I asked if she was the kind of allergic where people asphyxiate and turn pretty colors from ingesting peanuts and the mother said yes. And the teen ate another one! I wished them good luck that night. Personally, if I had a peanut allergy, I'd be asking some questions before I ate anything, even if I didn't see a three foot sign announcing the demo of the day behind the station, another sign stating that this product contains peanuts at eye level in front of the demo person, and an empty container on the counter with a label that says "Peanut..." next to the sample which she ate unquestioningly. Oh, and there were about 100 jars of the sauce on the shelf in front of the demo counter. Must have a death wish or maybe she likes living on the edge. Ever hear of the Darwin awards? I smell a winner.

Jasper Fforde

See, he's this Oxford-educated guy in Wales who writes brilliantly in this mash-up of fiction genres: very film noir detective novels from the 1950s/names which are silly puns/farce/classic European literature references/nursery rhymes/science fiction/love story and probably a few genres I couldn't think of right this minute. It's crazy but it works.

When I started this blog lo those many months ago, it was mainly to practice writing on a regular basis- my husband's suggestion. The goal is to get better at it, as well as get in the habit, so that at some point, someone might see my blog, like my style, and offer me large sums of cash to do it some more. Or if I got brave enough to seek out publications, online or in print, which accept submissions, then I could refer them to my blog so they could see samples of my writing.

I don't know about you, but when you do things in the arts or creative fields, I think it's very hard to judge your own work subjectively. Some people overestimate their talent, and others underestimate. I always think what I do is crap, but then I figure that someone else might think otherwise. So I decided to go out on a limb and write to my favorite writers, John Hodgman and Jasper FForde, and ask them to have a look and let me know whether I was beating my head against the wall, or if it was worth pursuing.

I didn't expect much, but figured nothing ventured, nothing gained, so what the hell. To my surprise I got personal and very funny e-mails from both!

Sad to say, most people I know have barely heard of either of them, but I highly recommend both writers' work if you have a good sense of humor and at least a pretty good liberal arts education. I've got a hot tip for those of you who actually got one of these degrees: reading guys like this is one of the very few things you can do with it. Another is using the paper your degree is printed on to enhance the bonfire for about 15 seconds while you vainly try to keep warm in the abandoned tenement you're now squatting in, mainly thanks to that fine degree you squandered your hard-earned cash on and now find yourself deep in debt for.

Anyway, when Jasper Fforde kindly wrote me back, he mentioned that he was hard at work on his next novel. I've read everything he's written so far and loved it, so I can't wait for him to finish this next one. See? There WAS a point to all this rambling. Yegads, is that the time? Off to bed, me.

lambie of the week

Well, technically, it's now Friday, and this particular lambie of the week is my salute to Chanu-Kwanz-Solsti-Mas-Devali, the hybrid holiday. I used nine seperate images to make this cheesy representation. There's a dog costume's reindeer bells, a menorah, a kwanzaa thingy, plastic reindeer horns, a christmas tree, two seperate pieces of artificial turf and the background. I considered adding in some images from Devali and the Solstice, and maybe some other spiritual traditions which people made up more recently or got over-marketed into infinity, but it was a real pain in the ass putting this much together so I called it quits. At least the Solstice has been celebrated since man discovered the seasons changed and couldn't figure out how they changed back every year. Scary! That was right up there with "how does the sun leave and come back?". These things still spark a hot debate between scientists and people who would believe the earth was flat if they read it in a really old book written by people who lived in caves and tents and lots of other people told them it was true. Or if they saw something about it on TV. Geez.

iPhones

On a totally unrelated topic, here's the thing about iPhones: if you're kind of a computer nerd/geek and loves all your fancy gadgets and doodads, and if you have pretty large (at least to me) chunk of change burning a hole in your pocket, and if you have a ton of MP3s and/or CDs and want to be able to play them on the same thingy that you use for a phone and a datebook, if you want to be able to check your e-mail from anywhere and get GPS directions to get there from here, and if you want to be able to see good quality moving images (some would call those videos), the thing is screaming your name.

On the other hand, a guy at my store told me his wife asked for one for Christmas and she's never been able to figure out how to get on the internet, doesn't have any MP3s, doesn't know how to download anything and doesn't have e-mail. I asked him what she thought she was going to use it for besides just making calls. He said she'd probably give up, then give it to him and he got a big smile on his face. Ohhhhh...but she decided she didn't want one after all. Oh well, dude.
I have to admit, seeing a couple people's iPhones did give me a slight case of I-want-its, but not enough to shell out my barely eked-out pittance of a paycheck to buy one. And the voice quality of what's really a fancy shmancy cell phone with a crapload of doodads still leaves something to be desired. Plus you're stuck with the one carrier and they've got you by the short and curlies so far.

The decision is up to you, but that's the argument and counter-argument in a nutshell.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Now is the winter of my discontent. That's probably because it's snowing. I like watching all the pretty little flakes dancing around, so long as I don't have to drive in it. The world is blanketed in white and it's like being in a fairy land.

Snowballs are fun, sledding down the street is fun (I don't think I still have a sled, but the memory is fun), making hot chocolate and baking cookies on a snowy day- all fun, cozy things to do.

Shoveling snow, scraping ice off of windshields, crazy drivers trying to pass you because they have a four-wheel drive and you've got a crappy old car with questionable braking time- not so much fun.

Risking your life with all of the above just so you can hand out free food to cranky old rich ladies and the show-offs in the four-wheel drives too stupid or bored to stay home, which is where I'd much rather be- priceless.

So here it is, the middle of that great retail crescendo approaching: Holiday Season. Full crazy mode is still in my future. We're only up to Slightly More Crazy Than Usual. But if you add in the snow factor, that shoots the Crazy Factor up dramatically. Something happens in my city every year when snow hits. We don't usually get that much of it, but it's like we forget every year what a pain in the ass it is to deal with, then when the snow hits, we remember suddenly and panic. What if we're trapped in the house with nothing to eat or drink? We may never eat or drink again! Mind you, there's only been about an inch of snow most times, if that much. Still...it could happen. Right after man-eating land sharks turn up in the center of town to devour unwary citizens in the trendiest cafes while sipping their mochachinos. I want pictures of that.

After the snow-induced onslaught, my store usually looks like a bomb went off. The shelves are mostly empty, and my co-workers are left lying in a tangled heap of bodies flopped over on the cash registers from exhaustion.

Keep in mind that retailers love this. They're thrilled to bits that, in your panic, you decided to buy 14 packages of your favorite spaghetti, so that if you are indeed stuck in your house, you'll have enough pasta to last you for the next 5 weeks. Panic-stricken shoppers are a retailers dream and a retail worker's nightmare. I saw a video from YouTube on Retail Hell Underground's site where a stag got trapped in what looked like a Target store and it was slipping and sliding around madly trying to find its way out again and not succeeding because he obviously didn't know the layout of the store. Yeah, it's a lot like that. Only the deer was better at finding the ladies' lingerie he was looking for. And it took him less time than some of our customers to find his way out again. Pretty sad. For the humans, I mean. The deer seemed be having a pretty good time.

Guilty Confession

Is it wrong to love the baling machine? If you don't know what that is, it's this big monster made of steel. A couple of people would fit inside, if you were daft enough to do that. You put the flattened boxes in, or even better, an uncrushed box, push the button, and then it crushinates them. When it's full, the thing smashes them down so you can put some baling wire around the whole stack like a bale of hay, and then get it on a pallet so it can be taken away by the returns truck. I love this thing, especially when I get to watch the box being flattened. Sometimes I pretend I'm feeding an angry volcano god, other times I pretend it's people's heads who have annoyed me recently. It makes a lot of noise so you can't hear anyone ( sometimes that's fun). I'm starting to think that weird things entertain me. Doesn't bother me at all.

Lame or Lamb?

So maybe you've seen our cinematic extravaganza starring my lambie? He now refers to himself only in the third person. I thought it was pretty stupid, but then I like stupid, at least a certain style of it anyway. But after watching some other random YouTube videos, I feel like Spielberg or Hitchcock or even Orson Welles (that may be because I'm a little bloated today) by comparison.

I don't understand

Holidays suck. Some insane marketing veep gets a bug up his ass about increasing retail sales, and suddenly some obscure little holiday gets a new spin and it's big, big BIG. Card companies, people who make useless crap for people who go crazy for matchy-matchy anything (oh come on, you know the type: they have to have different switchplates, towels, soap, pillows, sheets, etc. for whatever stupid holiday or event comes next.), toy manufacturers, cereal companies, etc.- they all jump right on that bandwagon and peddle like there's no tomorrow. Then all the rest of us blindly swallow the guff they hand out on commercials in all the media about how necessary it is to share this lovely holiday with people who make you crazy for the most part. They show you touching commercials about the joy of_____ (fill in the stupid holiday of your choice) and before you know it, you're dabbing at your eyes with a kleenex and wishing you could celebrate with the family they show on the commercial because they're not busy screaming at each other or drinking too much, unlike your actual family. Actually, my family is pretty nice, but this doesn't seem to be the norm from what I've heard.

So we all get sucked in to this manic need to get exactly the right thing for each person on our lists, and the list keeps getting bigger as families and friends procreate their ways into geometric progression. Pretty soon, there are way too many people you're buying presents for, and people go into debt trying to afford all of them. This is crazy, people. Really. I have to admit, I really like some of the decorating bit (of course, anything involving some more shiny things and little lights is fun for me), and I enjoy getting together with everyone. But just imagine: if we didn't have to spend all that time thinking about what to get all these people, fighting the crowds at the mall trying to buy exactly the same things, we would have so much more time, money and peace of mind!

Here's what I propose: once the kids are over the age of 16 and think everything you say or do is impossibly lame anyway, skip the whole presents thing, just get together with family and friends, everyone bring a covered dish and help clean up, have a great dinner (or any other meal) together and make sure you say lots of silly things so that everyone spends a lot of time laughing, then tell everyone you love them and go home (either you or them). And put extra shiny things around with little lights on them. Just don't wait for a specific holiday. Make one up, like GOSH I'm Frustrated Monday, or Happy Mortgage Rates Just Went Down, or Look I Got A Really Pretty Shade of Lipstick Today. How about Congratulations, You're Fully Employed Now? You get the picture. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. But it was a nice moment, wasn't it?

lambie of the week

Once upon a time (about a year or so ago), I got very mad at my husband. I was with a girlfriend who was mad at her boyfriend too and as we walked into a national bookstore chain dissing on the boyz, I saw the cutest stuffed lamb in the window. Had to have it! My strange little brain said something like: "oh yeah? well, I'm getting myself a lambie! hmph!" I don't understand it either. But I loved him so much that I kind of wore him out, a la The Velveteen Rabbit. So I went on a lamb replacement search and found him again. It's called the Douglas Babba Lamb, and when I found him, my husband got me two, so I'd have a back-up when this one had his fur all loved off. Do you know of ANYONE else who has a back-up lamb? Didn't think so. Now I have three of them all told. So here's what he looks like. It's our first production. Douglas Babba Lamb says he wants his SAG card now, but he doesn't have any lines, so screw him. Besides, what he really wants to do is direct.

lambie of the week

I don't know about where you live, but it's a rather silly and kind of embarrassing holiday here called Thanksgiving, during which we celebrate duping the indigenous population of the time, whom we call American Indians, for some useless crap. No one does THAT anymore, do they? The American Indians have, however, gotten back at us recently, by luring us with lots of shiny things and loud noises in their casinos, where we usually give them all our money with pretty much nothing to show for it except maybe some useless shiny trinkets. Now why does that sound so familiar? I love symmetry, don't you?

lambie of the week- gay sheep

So I ran out of good sheep images and went surfing on the 'net and found this! What could be better than a good sheep picture? A GAY sheep picture! Cool! And you thought they weren't interesting. Hah! This was an article in the New York Times. They actually get paid to write stuff. Ooooh. If you wanna read the article, go here. I wonder if sheep know how many times to stamp their feet in the public restroom if they want gay sex. Hmm.

Thank You, Zia

Well, I had pretty much thrown in the towel for this blog thing after my recent brush with death. Oh... actually it was more of a horrible 3 week brush with respiratory trouble after a nasty cold. Dramatic license is what you call that.

So I got my first comment from someone other than my husband and it spurred me on, for good or ill, to write something new. I'd been at a loss for words, not to mention new sheep pictures, for a bit, but Zia has cured me.

I'm always curious about how, among probably zillions of very clever blogs, anyone ever finds mine. I hope you don't mind, gentle reader, all two of you, that I try to find out how you ended up here of all places. I'm well chuffed that you did, of course. It's amazing how people from all over the world wind up looking for the same bit of information that you thought only you were interested in, if you get the syntax of that.

I did get rather downhearted at the large numbers (large percentage-wise, considering I haven't had all that many total readers) of you who found me because of that Kyla Ebbert thing long after her 15 minutes of fame should have been over. It made me that much more cynical about the shallowness and stupidity of people, and quite frankly I was already pretty cynical about that.

So, I happened to google the google, so to speak, and found this fabulous site called RetailHell Underground, which was close to my blog reference about the hell of retail sales and how I survive it. If you or someone you know is a retail slave, go there! Yes, now! I bow to their superior wit. I'm not worthy.

According to their formula, I am not an insurance whore, but a retail slut. Retail whores are different because they like it. They'll explain.

Today, November 9, I foolishly substituted for another demo diva for the morning/afternoon shift, having no idea that a meeting had been called for every nutbag in my area to come to my retail establishment. I was very close to ordering a stun-gun by the end of my shift. Fortunately, I have learned to use such moments as an opportune time to take out the trash or wash something in the back, so that I don't maim the next rude maniac who stands there in my face for the next 10 minutes waiting to snarf free food only to bitch about it as soon as they get it. I considered that perhaps I was simply in a bad mood. It can happen. But when I talked to co-workers, they all confirmed my opinion and the customers were, in fact, some of the biggest nutters I've ever seen. I'm talking the type who I talk to once, let them espouse their strange beliefs, and then the next time, just back away slowly and go do something else for a while till they go away.

Remember Jim Jones in Guyana? Or who was that other guy who killed himself and all of his followers? Yeah, like that. Fa la f***ing la and happy freakin' holidays. And it's only November 9! Wise retail establishments would hand out thorazine at the timeclock from now till January 2, 2008. No, I'm not holding my breath waiting. But if a dreamy look suddenly comes onto my face while you're espousing your beliefs, remember that I work with knives for a living and my aim is excellent. It's only self-restraint...well, ok, it's that we need the health insurance, that keeps me from throwing sharp instruments at you in disgust. Fortunately, my apathy is a good balancing factor.

my latest favorite

I've been sick as a dog for the last week and have spent most of it staring vacantly into space waiting to stop oozing things from various orifices. They take turns, but they've all been active. I've been doing a pretty good imitation of Mt. Vesuvius right before Pompeii took a hit, but things are starting, albeit slowly, to calm down. I still sound like an angry chihuaha when I cough, but life will go on. I know this sound because my next door neighbor, conveniently, owns one of these little beasts. There is such a thing as overbreeding, folks. I love animals, but I would be quite happy to stomp its little head in, if my neighbor wasn't such a nice lady. I will dance on its grave when it finally expires, but it will probably outlive me just to spite me. I've lived here for five years and the damned thing still barks at me and snarls every time I sit in my own damned back yard.

Anyway, to get back to the original point of all this, my new favorite site is owned by Michael J. Nelson. You may not know his name, but if you are of a certain age, you may actually remember Mystery Science Theater. He took B movies, or even worse ones, and put his own soundtracks on them. They varied in success, but the best ones were absolutely hysterical, at least to me and my college friends.

Now Mike has a website, which I just found accidentally, and it's worth looking at even if you have no idea what I'm talking about for the descriptions of recent and not so recent movies. I laughed so hard that my husband ran up to see what that horrendous noise was (ever hear a chihuaha crack up laughing? I hope not! But I think I must have been doing a good impression of what it would sound like.). You know it's funny when my eyes are tearing so badly that I can't see and can't talk intelligibly due to laughing. (As opposed to other reasons).

Check his site out and see if you think he's as funny as I do.

lambie of the week

This is one of my all-time favorite cartoons, by the magnificent Mo Willems. He has written many children's books and wrote for Sesame Street, but the names alone and inside jokes make it worth it even if, heaven forfend, you don't care much about sheep. Tell me it's not so! Hey, how many people do you know who use the word "forfend"? Huh? I thought so. Especially if you're STILL looking up Kyla Ebbert references. For gosh sakes, people, she's not even interesting!

Honestly, people, there are prettier, smarter, more influential, more interesting women around to ogle. Pick one. The woman isn't even on the same planet as Sophia Loren, for instance. Or Glenda Jackson. Or even Maggie Thatcher. OK, maybe she's not what you'd call a looker, but influential? You betcha, whatever you thought of her politics. Let's try thinking with the UPstairs bits, eh what? You know what Frank Zappa said? "What is the dirtiest part of your body? It's your mind!"

lambie of the week

You see? It's not just me. You don't have to be English, but it helps. Or is that crazy? I dunno.

Meantime, I'm starting my own Larry Craig campaign re-election fund. I feel flushed with pride. He's not out (of the closet) yet. Water closet, that is. Yeh, right. Now why does this video remind me of Larry Craig? Hmmmm.

lambie of the week

This is a Cotswold Sheep. I've never seen one before, but it's darn cute. It wouldn't have taken me so long to put the lambie of the week up, but I found a site with literally thousands of sheep-related products. No, I don't mean you can find those boots (ick!), but there are about a billion sheep t-shirt, mug and note card designs. I just couldn't stop looking.

There are a lot of really cute ones, but I'm designing my own. I'm thinking maybe a series, with different kinds of sheep. I'm gonna draw them so that there are no copyright problems.

I'm naming this one Kyla Ebbert, just so I can make a reference to her in a blatant attempt at exploitation of an apparently endlessly fascinating topic. My sheep Kyla is always appropropriately dressed wherever she goes.

I love Glenda Jackson

Not in the Biblical sense. I just love the body of work she produced while acting in films. I also admire her work as an MP in England- they're lucky to have her for that too.

If you've never seen a film with Glenda Jackson, consider yourself unfortunate. She was brilliant in "Stevie" as English poet Stevie Smith (as was Mona Washbourne alongside her). You should also try to see her in "Women In Love", "The Music Lovers," "Elizabeth R", "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Mary Queen of Scots," "A Touch of Class," "House Calls," "The Romantic Englishwoman," "The Incredible Sarah" (that's about Sarah Bernhardt, also a brilliant woman), "Hopscotch" (which was with the divine Walter Matthau, as was House Calls). Not that I have an opnion about it.

I actually checked into her voting record as an MP for the Hampstead/Highgate area, and she's just as intelligent about her voting choices and as impassioned about the issues she believes in. I doff my hat to you, madam.

lambie of the week

You'll never guess what I'm making for dinner tonight- boneless leg of...no, not cat. Not very meaty. I swear, I totally forgot. I just loves my lambs, I loves them inside of me and outside of me. I loves to play with them and then I loves to eat them, as long as they're not the same one. You know what they say on farms: "never name your food." That's why they're called things like Mr.Mutton, Legg, Chop, Stewie, and Number 61.

I've got a pink phone!

Yes, here I am, approaching 50 in less years than I care to think about and it was time for a cell phone upgrade. What do I get? A pink RAZR. It's an older model, but then so am I. Pink!!! Ick. I've never been a lace and pearls girl. I'm even less so these days.

What's going on here?! Actually, it's an act of pure pragmatism. Hubby has a black one and we needed a different color to be able to tell them apart. Now I have to admit, I am kind of excited to have a slimmer phone and it has all kinds of new doo-dahs that the old phone didn't have.

So to get into the spirit of the thing, I decided to immediately find myself the most godawful girly type genuine Japanese schoolgirl charms to put on the new phone. I found 2 perfect ones for surprisingly little money, even with shipping. One is a shocking pink mink ball with beads hanging off, another is a Hello Kitty with japanese noodle dish. Perfect. Am I true Otaku or what? People who know me will think I've gone off my rocker.

Well, folks, that boat sailed quite a long time ago, I'm afraid. Why, just the other day, I went to pick up some prescriptions we had filled at our local supermarket and I chanced to see squeaky toys in the shape of dangerous animals on the endcap. I HAD to have them. I resisted buying all of them and settled for a shark and a lizard with that ruff thing that pops up. Hey, for $4 I can bother the people I work with endlessly. Seems like a good investment to me.

Meanwhile, if I ever lose my phone, it'll be very easy to describe and find. I might just be laughing too hard for you to understand the description though.

Religion- Who Needs It?

So far, the most popular religions these days are Christianity, Islam and Judaism. There are lots of others. Some worship one god too, others prefer a pantheon- that's many different gods, you know.

I was raised in one of the first three, but, sad to say, it never stuck. Just wasn't interested. I figured if there was actually one all-knowing, all-seeing bearded guy in a robe, maybe with some wings or something, if this mighty Guy was actually real, that's a mighty big job. There are billions of people on this miserable planet, and everyone wants a piece of him. Look at me, Guy, over here. No, no, look at ME, Guy, I'm over HERE. And all these billions of prayers and supplications. How awful must THAT get? What a job! Who'd want it? Imagine, it's like the worst customer service job ever- no one appreciates you, they're always complaining about everything, never satisfied, fighting amongst themselves all the time. It's more akin to being the parent in the front seat of a car with a bunch of unruly brats screaming and fighting in the back seat, only instead of 4, there's like 4 billion of them. Yikes! I know if I were that Guy, I'd want to opt out like nobody's business.

So the whole monotheistic thing just never worked for me, personally. I figure that if this poor shmo is stuck with the job, he doesn't need one more screaming child, begging for the latest toy in the back seat of the car of Life. So I don't want to bother the poor dear. I don't really need him particularly, so I'm just gonna live my life and do the best I can to be the best person I can. All the definitive writings in Bibles and Koran and everything else I've read seem to say pretty much the same things anyway: don't lie, cheat or steal; don't covet your neighbor's husband/wife/lawnmower, respect your elders as much as is humanly possible (sorry, but some are just jackasses), be polite, have compassion, raise your children with love, etc.

I don't worry about if I had meat with milk or ate only fish on a friday or whatever. I don't need anyone else telling me what to eat or not eat, wear or not wear, do or not do. I'm pretty good at figuring those things out for myself. It's called, somewhat wrongly, common sense.
I especially don't need some guy in one of these organizations telling me on a weekly basis what the official stance is on political figures running for office, what I can and can't do with my body, with whom, under what circumstances and how long. Again, nobody's business but mine.

So I tried paganism- the definition varies, but wicca, witchcraft, all that sort of thing. I have actually never run into the types that religious right folks seem so afraid of- oh, you know. Worshipping the devil, sacrificing babies, all that crap. I've run into more than a few crackpots, flakes of all descriptions and screw-ups, but no one who was into being evil. Most were, at worst, confused by life. At best, they've turned out to be a little left of center, but essentially good people just trying to find ways to be better people. Mostly, they seem to fall into the same traps as the monotheists, but they call them different things. They like the illusion that the pagan way is different. Meanwhile, it's pretty much the same, only with more tree-hugging, fun outfits that would work just as well at a Ren Faire, and more bonfires to stand around, usually involving a drum circle. That's pretty much it.

Sadly, paganism doesn't seem to do it for me either. Goddess knows I gave it a good try. I couldn't even manage to pick a Tradition- this means which ancient Path you Walk, which is usually in capital letters, perhaps for emphasis. The Traditions can be Norse, Celtic, Babylonian, Sumerian, Baltic, Siberian, you name it.

I decided to start my own religion. It's called None of The Above. There aren't any official gods or goddesses, but if it makes you feel better, go ahead and make some up. We don't believe in any one thing in particular, but mainly we just don't want to bother anybody, nor do we wish to be bothered. We like to keep the fuss to a minimum, there are no official prayers or supplications, no particular rituals, no standardized holidays. Our God/dess, if there actually is one at all, can be called simply To Whom It May Concern. Just in case, you understand. Meantime, we just try to be the best people we can be. If we screw up, we think you should try to fix it and own up, and if that's not possible, say you're sorry and move on. We believe in the power of good manners- saying please and thank you to everyone where appropriate, not speaking when one's mouth is full, making sure that everyone is introduced to each other at parties, and treating every human being we interact with with respect, at least until they prove themselves unworthy of it. That's my religion. I really don't care if anyone else wants to join, because frankly, it'll only increase the paperwork. Start your own branch if you want.

Ebbert Redux

So what kind of world is this ? I write some personal, ahem, uh, moving pieces about those nearest and dearest to me- who cares? Nobody, that's who. I write scathing things about the failures of my local ISP- nothing.

I write about some stupid little bimbo, who works at Hooters and got thrown off a plane by an even dumber dumbass and all of a sudden, I'm all over Technorati. Oh wait, the same thing happened at NBC's Today Show- Matt Lauer had to interview the chick and her family- what bet did YOU lose, Matt? You can see the interview here.

I've never been there, but my husband went once and he described Hooters as a testosterone dream- big boobs (except in Baltimore, apparently- John Waters says there are no pretty girls in Baltimore), big screen TVs with sports on everywhere, watery, lousy beer at outrageous prices, but not as bad as strip clubs, and barely adequate typical bar food. Altogether unimaginative and overpriced. All that's missing is loud, smelly farts.

And this is where the girl works. I hope they pay a lot of money to their waitstaff. And I hope she sues the pants off of Southwest Airlines, so that they're strongly encouraged to mind their own business when it comes to what someone wears on the plane. No one would even see her skirt when she sat down. If it's like any of the airlines I've flown on, your knees are usually smashed against the seat in front of you. It's not like she was distracting the pilot so he couldn't fly the plane- most pilots are usually drunk anyway and the plane pretty much flies itself except for takeoffs and landings. So who was she bothering? Are you telling me that Keith, the flight attendant guy, was so distracted by her lack of modesty that he was afraid it would render his very important job of handing out warm Coca Colas and tiny bottles of alcohol too difficult? Next thing you know, we'll all have to wear burkas on the plane if they keep this up. Now who does that remind me of?

Airline Employees Arbiters of Family Values

We were watching a movie with a friend. My friend and my husband mentioned in passing that an airline had actually refused to allow a young woman to fly on the plane. I thought they were making it up, but alas, no.

So I searched for, and found the original article about it in the Vail Daily. Sure enough, Kyla Ebbert, a 23 year old student, was asked to leave the plane by a Southwest Airlines employee. The employee told her that she was "...dressed inappropriately. This is a family airline. You’re too provocative to fly on this plane," according to Miss Ebbert, who was flying from San Diego to Tuscon for a doctor's appointment.

According to the Vail Daily article, ""Chris Mainz, a spokesman for the Dallas-based airline, said a customer service supervisor asked Ebbert to leave the plane and addressed her in the walkway leading back to the terminal, “away from the other customers.”

The employee felt the outfit “revealed too much” but was placated after Ebbert made adjustments that included covering her stomach, Mainz said."

OK, who exactly made a flight attendant, or as some of us call them, flying waiters/waitresses, arbiters of good taste/fashion/family values? Were any men with very tight pants or short shorts ever led off a Southwest Airlines plane?

Ohhh, wait a minute, it's a Dallas, TEXAS-based airline, you know- land of big hair, the christian right, gun racks, Bush Jr. NOW I get it.

So if airline employees get to decide what is all right to wear or not wear, how about an airline where no one wears anything? you pre-pay for food or drinks, because where are you going to put your credit card or your wallet? I would insist, however, that there be some sort of disposable cover for the seats, both back support and seat cushion. I mean, really! I don't mind going naked if it speeds things up, but I sure don't want the last guys sweaty balls dragging around the seat before I sit down! Not to mention skid marks. Which I won't. I know! We'd call it Bare Air! I can just see the tagline: "At Bare Air, we don't care what you wear down there. You'll come into this town, or any other, naked as the day you were born and you'll leave the same way."

And, by the way, thanks to other events which happened on this date, 9/11/07, my friend told me that she was taken out of line during the whole scan the suitcase/handbag thing at the airport one time because she had something very dangerous in her possession- a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the plane ride. I didn't know they were lethal weapons, but apparently in the wrong hands, anything is. So I guess terrorists have been watching too much MacGyver and got carried away. Now if she had had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich AND a revealing outfit on, I guess we would never have seen her again if she flew Southwest. Whew!

I want my own airline! I'm gonna have my stewards/stewardesses decide if the customers are dressed appropriately- I can just see it! "Hey, you in the flood pants! Please step aside, you're embarrassing the other customers. People will think they're tacky too if they're seen on the same plane as you." Or how about "Excuse me, madam, but that shirt and that skirt- what were you thinking? Two different patterns and completely different colors? As if that weren't enough, those shoes are the ugliest I've ever seen on a living human. Did you lose a bet or something? I'm sorry, madam. You'll have to leave the plane. The clashing colors are giving all the other passengers a headache. You may come back when you pick a color scheme that matches." Or how about the exclusive Vegas run? "Sir, I regret to inform you that there is simply not enough shiny things on you for this plane. At the very least, some Elvis shades would have helped. Don't come back without a pinky ring and lots of chains. Where do you think you're going? Maybe at the Cafe Carlyle in NYC you look all right, but for here? Feh. Get off the freakin' plane."

Lambie of the week

Outrage

So here's my latest rant: I actually received, not in my junk e-mail folder, but in my inbox, an e-mail from someone claiming to be "Carlene Biggs" and this person or persons claim that their e-mail address is MY PERSONAL e-mail address. Talk about the slings and arrow of outrageous fortune!

But it gets better- it's bad enough that someone used my e-mail address and possibly compromised my information, probably using my address for spamming and malware. My own father has NEVER been able to receive my e-mail and has the same provider which I will not name (rhymes with horizon). I know what you're thinking: maybe the vicious asswipes using my address for no good is/are the reason why he never receives it. But it's unlikely that the vicious asswipes had my e-mail address for the same amount of time.

On the other hand, a friend of mine can receive my e-mails, but I've never been able to receive her replies.

So what exactly am I secure from? My dad and my friend? Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work.

I've always been the...

And isn't this one the cutest? For someone who grew up in the city, where in hell did I learn to love the lamb? I dunno. Only thing I can figure out is that there was a TV show in black & white (that's how freakin' old I am!) at some godawful hour of the morning when I was around two. It was broadcast by the local agricultural school, and the opening shot was of goats and sheep running down this ramp thingy. The rest, as they say, is therapy. Go figure.

And speaking of husbands...

Mine didn't particularly care for being called a technogeek. Why the hell not? I bow to his technological expertise. There IS such a thing as geek chic. When I met him, he was wearing a Beavis & Butthead t-shirt, postal shorts, long white tube socks and sandals and a baseball cap over his long hair. What would you call that?!! I didn't fall in love with him for his wonderful taste in clothing. But the more I talked to him, the more I liked him.

My mom always said "don't marry for looks, because eventually everyone loses their looks and then what have you got? marry for heart and it will always be there". So I did. And he's actually kinda cute when you dress him up. He'll hate that.

Oops!

If you're reading this blog, (and if you're not, I guess I'm not actually talking to you, so there's a bit of an existential crisis right there) you may have been interested in some of my favorite sites, lazily clicked the connection that was supposed to take you to the link I was talking about, and then nothing happened. Oops!

Fortunately for me, my technogeek husband is a genius at fixing this sort of thing, so I've got everything running smoothly once again.

I happen to be rather stubborn and like to learn how to do things without any help (read: interference) and find my own answers in my own way. It takes longer sometimes, but I enjoy doing it like that. When I bought my used car, the manual with the instructions for setting the radio stations was AWOL, so I monkeyed around, randomly pushing buttons, until my favorite stations had somehow achieved "pre-set" status. Yay! Of course, if I take the car to the mechanic and lose my pre-sets, I have to fumble around again in much the same manner to get them back, since I have no idea which set of fumblings led to success the first time. You may be comparing me to monkeys with shakespeare at this point, but that's OK with me.

Hubby, on the other hand, gets annoyed and jumps in to help me, in the process, destroying my fun. He doesn't mean to, he only wants to help.

I know there are other people like me, and I hope the rest of them know how ass-backward they are too. I just don't care.

Either way, the links have now been fixed, and the bruises will heal, but there's a mouse-shaped one on his arm and one of the coffee mugs will never be the same.

friendship

funny thing about friends. your relatives are stuck with you, and if you're lucky, you get along with them all right. there's no doubt in my mind that i'm pretty lucky on that score. if you're really lucky, you might have one or two people you can call a close friend. for some people, that's a lot. i can't think for the life of me how i got so damned lucky, but there's a big bunch of people i can call close friends. i don't even know WHAT you'd call that. i think i'll have to invent a new term for that kind of luck. flucky? i don't know. douglas adams could probably come up with a good term for it. i'll have to think about it some more.

we used to rent this amazing house in the adirondacks on a small lake with about 14 of my friends. the house was built in the 1900's by a family from my area. their grandfather had designed and built this log house, a great camp as they call them in that neck of the woods. most of the windows were floor to ceiling and the walls were made of bark in one bedroom. it was like being inside out in a tree. the windows on one side reflected the light glinting on the lake and you could hear the loons calling sometimes. on the other side, the coolness of the woods surrounding the house cast shadows and brought a cool breeze to blow the curtains. at night, we'd all bundle up and gather on the dock to watch the stars. one year there were meteor showers. they looked so close that you could swear you could touch them.

all the furniture was real, original adirondack style furniture. even the chandelier in the living room was made out of birch bark. there was an ancient moosehead over a huge stone fireplace and squirrels ran across the rafters in the living room. all the doors looked more like barn doors and either had big latches like that or deer hooves. if you're a PETA member, you're probably cringing, but you'd never last on a real farm, so go somewhere else.

the adirondacks are beautiful to begin with, and the house is truly unique, but i could never figure out whether it was the place or the people i liked best. i had met this particular bunch of characters at a new year's party someone brought me to. turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. somehow, i had managed to get plonked down on a whole herd of bright, funny interesting people.

after i had infiltrated this bunch, i kept hearing about this magical place, spoken of in reverent whispers, usually followed by groans of ecstasy. i couldn't imagine how this place could be real. then, one day at a party, someone asked me if i wanted to go too. i looked around to see if they meant someone else. i felt like i was about to be initiated into some secret club. hell yeah, i'll be there! i was so excited.

when i got there, i saw why my friends spoke like that about the place. but there was so much more to it than that. i ended up in the bedroom right above the kitchen, so the first thing i heard in the mornings was the sound of laughter. is there any more beautiful sound? i can't think of any. i was an only child, so our house was always fairly quiet growing up.

each night two of us would cook dinner for the rest of us. they'd choose the wine or beer to accompany the dinner and decide what to make. we never had a bad meal. it was fun to be the evening's orchestrator of dinner, and you'd think the best part of being the one to make dinner was that you were exempt from doing dishes for the evening. but it was more fun to do the dishes, because everyone else crowded into the kitchen, put some kind of lively music on, and danced around the kitchen while they washed, dried, and put away. i hate doing dishes, but it was so much fun like that that i never seemed to mind.

each summer we spent the week together was different. people who were single got married, people who'd been married got divorced, people had kids, kids got too big, each time was a different permutation, but they were all good ones.

one year, we were living in an area almost as pretty, in a wooded area in the country, and i thought that it wouldn't be such a big deal to go, but we went anyway. i had lost my mom a couple of months before, and sad just doesn't seem to cover it. but when we pulled up the road to the house, there was my friend al smiling at us, and the world got just a little sunnier all of a sudden.

a long time ago, trust exercises were big in acting classes and some forms of therapy. you fall backwards and trust that someone will catch you before you land on your ass and bust yourself up. risky business, that. well, my friends and i have all been through all sorts of things, but the nice thing is that i'm pretty sure that if any of us fall, and we have from time to time, the others will be there to catch us. it's a nice feeling.

so i saw some friends from this bunch tonight where i work. they came looking for me, to tell me that they had just moved back to the area. i felt like a puppy wagging its tail. you don't have to talk to people every day to feel close to them sometimes, but it sure is nice to have them close by. people get so damned busy these days, it's a wonder you see them at all. but when you do, it's like you were holding your breath for ages, and all of a sudden you can breathe again and feel the blood pumping in your veins.

that's the wonder of friendship.

what's next, j.k.?

so if you've read my husband's blog, eponym, you know we've both been reading harry potter. ok, harry potter, harry potter, harry potter. got it out of your system now? good. i read them, i liked them, they were fun, fast reads and had lots of plot holes and character mistakes. but i liked them. i'm an infuriatingly fast reader, or so my husband tells me, so when i like something i devour it in no time at all. then i'm on the hunt for my next fix. hubby says books are like crack for me. maybe so. they're brain candy when well-written. there's an unfortunate dearth of those. entertain me, enlighten me, make me laugh, make me cry, make me think and do it with clear, beautiful language, preferably with subtle nuances, and i'll read anything you've got. give it to me!

so my question for j.k. is "what's next?". she's the biggest rags-to-riches story since oprah. unless contractually obligated to do so, she need never do another bloody thing again. and, like oprah, she worked hard, found a niche and went full throttle. good on ya, mate.

it seems to me that her writing got a little better as she continued to plow through book after book. so i wonder if the potter books have been permanently laid to rest, or will a hungry public try to exhume the bodies and demand another? and if so, will she accept? i actually hope not. everyone liked "rocky", and maybe even "rocky 2". but would anyone go to see "rocky 27: the wheelchair years"? gosh, i hope not.

it will be interesting to see what j.k. rowling does next. i hope it's something completely different from harry potter, maybe even another medium altogether. bath products? cologne? who knows.

By the way, have you seen JKR's site? It's one of the neatest I've ever seen.

new list: music we like

so we've got kinda weird taste in music. here are the reasons i've selected these:

butterfly: because it's one of malcolm mclaren's least remembered attempts. i bought this album when it came out way too many years ago and liked the mix of funk and opera. it's definitely dopey, but i still like it.

kew.rhone.: so old that the album is in a wheelchair on life support, but blegvad is highly intelligent and frequently funny, especially here. carla bley (who also worked with zappa), as well as other highly respected musicians like john greaves, joins blegvad for some seriously complicated music which is accompanied by lyrics so densely referenced that there's a flow chart to keep track of it all. not for the stupid.

i'm not in love: ok, so i was an 80s club bunny, but if you can get a better copy than the crappy one on amazon, this was 120 tracks of 2 guys, a piano, and a secretary they pulled out of the office for the whisper thingy at the last minute. i used to listen to this in a recording studio booth at school, where it became this wall of sound- sheer heaven, at least for me. a brilliant piece of studio engineering.

one nation: george clinton, parliament, funkadelic, bootsy collins, bernie worrell, big complicated music to groove to, musicians who were amazing, all kinds of genres brought together in a danceable mode. if you have any rhythm or joie devivre, preferably both, this is it.

space is the place: another complicated, genre-crossing group, sun ra and his arkestra- you can't really even classify it- it's closest to both jazz and classical music, but other influences can frequently be heard. a crazy guy who insisted his musicians conform to sun ra's way of living, kind of like a dojo of music. the guy was apparently hard to live with but light years ahead of his time.

it's lambie friday

it's mutton, honey. in the interest of all things lambie, i give you shari lewis, who seemed to be a real lamb. that's lambchop, if you've never seen either of them. she had a tv show and lived nearby.




then again...

Hodgman approved

hoboes, lobsters and sheep- need i say more?

lambie of the week

black-faced sheep are my favorite. nice & fluffy. ok, kitties are fluffy too, but they can get squooshed if you accidentally step on one. sheep? harder to get under foot. and sheep won't scratch up all your nice furniture. you don't even have to let them into your house. and there's no litter box to clean. and if you're really ambitious, you can give your sheep a haircut (shearing) and knit a sweater with the wool. anyone would be glad to wear it. ever knit a kitty fur sweater? people would just look at you funny and back away slowly.